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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The indebtedness of Chaucer's Legend of Philomela to the Ovide Moralisé for details not to be found in the Metamorphoses was established more than a decade ago by Professor Lowes. Observing, further, in the Legend of Ariadne and in the short account of her abandonment by Theseus in the Hous of Fame (405–426) the strong resemblances to Machaut's résumé of Theseus' “fals jape” in the Jugement dou Roy de Navarre, Lowes suggested that these likenesses might also be due, wholly or in part, to a common use of Machaut's favorite source, the Ovide Moralisé, although as the pertinent part of the text of the Ovide Moralisé was still unpublished, he was unable to verify his conjecture. Recently Professor Shannon, without examining the history of Ariadne in the French version of the Metamorphoses, has somewhat rashly rejected Professor Lowes's theory, and declared that Boccaccio's De Genealogia Deorum is the only source aside from Ovid himself which Chaucer used for his stories of the heroine. In the course of a general examination of the influence upon Chaucer of the Ovide Moralisé —made upon de Boer's edition and upon a manuscript of the complete text—I have found that Lowes's hypothesis is sound, while the instances of the impress of Boccaccio's mythology cited by Shannon appear uniformly weak.
page 182 note 1 Met. 6, 424–674.
page 182 note 2 “Chaucer and the Ovide Moralisé,” PMLA xxxiii (1918), 303–319.
page 182 note 3 JDRN. (ed. Hoepffner) 2707–2769.
page 182 note 4 Op. cit., pp. 320–325.
page 182 note 5 For a treatment of Machaut's extensive use of the OM., see C. de Boer, “Guillaume de Machaut et l'Ovide Moralisé,” Rom. xliii (1914), 335–352.
page 182 note 6 In 1918 only the first three books of the fifteen of the OM. had been printed by de Boer (Ovide Moralisé, Poème du Commencement du Quatorzième Siecle, Publié d'après Tous les Manuscrits Connus, Livres i–iii, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akad. van Wettenschappen te Amsterdam, Nieuwe Reeks xv [1915]). The Philomena, originally an independent poem but incorporated into the sixth book, had also been printed by de Boer, Philomena, Conte Raconté … par Chrétien de Troyes, Paris, 1909. Since Professor Lowes' article, the fourth, fifth, and sixth books have been issued by de Boer (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akad …, Nieuwe Reeks xxi [1920]).
page 182 note 7 E. F. Shannon, Chaucer and the Roman Poets, Harvard Stud. in Comp. Lit. vii, Cambridge, 1929, p. 66 ff., p. 228 ff. In fixing upon Boccaccio as a source for the Legend and the passage in the Hous of Fame, Shannon follows C. G. Child, “Chaucer's Legend of Good Woman and Boccaccio's De Genealogia Deorum,” MLN xi (1896), col. 482 ff.
page 182 note 8 MS. Bibl. Nat. fr. 373 in photostat.
page 182 note 9 HF. 405–426. The interlineations of the two passages are Professor Lowes'.
page 182 note 10 JDRN. 2741–2751, 2755–2758, 2763–2769.
page 182 note 11 Met. 8. 169–176.
page 182 note 12 MS. Bibl. Nat. fr. 373, fols. 172b–173d.
page 182 note 18 The heroine in her complaining of love's pangs stresses “Pitie, fole chose muable,” as conditioning her attitude toward Theseus—MS. Bibl. Nat. fr. 373, fol. 172°.
page 182 note 19 The other is that the father of Ariadne was the grandson of the “infernal judge.” See Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, N.Y., 1897, 1045–1046.
page 182 note 20 E.g. this gloss to Met. 8.101 preserved in a commentary to the Metamorphoses in the Bodleian MS. Canon. Lat. Class. 72 (c.13), fol. 42a: “Nota quod tres fuerun t filii iouis. eacu s minos / et radaman tus, et quia iuste iudicauer un t in ter ra dic untu r apud in feros iudicare. Mi-/nos in qui rit uer itatem. Radaman tus iudicat de inqui sitis. eacus punit reos.” Mediæval Ovidian manuscripts were usually glossed, and so probably those used by Chaucer.
page 182 note 21 Boccaccio set it down in the De Genealogia Deorum (11, Ch. 26). Child (op. cit., cols. 483–484) and Shannon (op. cit., pp. 229–230) probably err in considering this treatise the source of the detail, since, as has been and will be shown, Chaucer's acquaintance with the work is wholly unproven (see my earlier article, PMLA, xlv, p. 117, n. 28, p. 119, n. 35, p. 120, notes 43, 45, and 47, p. 126, n. 94; and the present study notes 32, 57, 58, 62, 68, 77).
page 182 note 22 LGW. 1895.
page 182 note 23 Her. 10. 67.
page 182 note 24 LGW. 1898–1899.
page 182 note 25 Met. 7. 456–458.
page 182 note 26 See W. H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, Leipzig, 1884–, I Band, 1 Abteil, p. 343.
page 182 note 27 I have encountered it in the mediaeval Mythographus Secundus, 122 (ed. A. Mai, Class. Auct. e Vat. Cod., 3, pp. 129–130) and in a scholium to Met. 7.458 in a German text of the Metamorphoses described by Grau, De Ovidii Metamorphoseon Codice Ampl. Priore, Halle, 1892. See Grau, p. 92.
page 182 note 28 E.g. this annotation in the commentary in the Bodleian Ms. Canon. Lat. Class. 72, fol. 40a–b: “Bella par at minos hic in nuit au ctor/ quod minos quon dam tempore misit filium suum an dro theum athenas causa, philosophan di quia ibi / erat studium sicut modo uiget par isius. qui an dro gens cum su btilis ess et atenien ses in uiden tes / ei eum a tur re pre cipitauer un t et stilis suis su bfocauer unt cuius mortem uolens uin dicare / minos collegit exer citum suum con tra athenienses.….”
The mention of the luckless boy in Her. 10. 99—“Viveret Androgeus utinam”—evoked similar annotation:—e.g. in a text in MS. Balliol 143, fol. 28b: “.… dicitu r quo d Androgeus filius regis minois / iuit athenas ad studiendum qui androgeus / erat adeo eleuatissimi ingenii quod in breui / factus est sufficien tissimus / unde doctores inui/dentes sibi ex sua scientia et ingenio or/dinauerun t tota lit er quo d ipsu m fecerun t inter fici.….”
page 182 note 29 NPT. B4537ff. The lament for Richard occurs in the Nova Poetria. Chaucer may also have known the Documentum.
page 182 note 30 Ed. Farai, Les Arts Poétiques du XIIe et du XIIIe Siècle.…, Paris, 1924, p. 269.
page 182 note 31 MS. Bibl. Nat. fr. 373, fol. 159a–b.
page 182 note 32 “Quant cil d'Athennes eurent mort Androgeüs.…” (JDRN. 2707–2708).
Boccaccio (De Gen. Deor. 11, Chs. 26–27) says that Androgeus surpassed the Athenians “in palaestra.” “Palaestra” may signify a gymnasium, a school of rhetoric, or rhetorical exercise. The De Gen. Deor. cannot therefore have supplied Chaucer with the information that Androgeus was “lerning philosophye,” as Child (op. cit., col. 484) and Shannon (op. cit., p. 231) suppose.
page 182 note 33 Ll. 459–489.
page 182 note 34 Met. 8. 6–151.
page 182 note 35 LGW. 1902–1921.
page 182 note 36 So he omits the transformation of Ceyx and Alcyone in the Boke of the Duchesse and that of Philomela, Procne and Tereus in the Legend of Philomela.
page 182 note 37 LGW. 1918–1920.
page 182 note 38 MS. Bibl. Nat. fr. 373, fol. 168b.
page 182 note 39 TC. 5. 1107–1110.
page 182 note 40 Oxf. Chaucer …, ii, 500.
page 182 note 41 “.… plumis in avem mutata vocatur Ciris et a tonso est hoc nomea adepta capillo” (Met. 8. 150–151).
page 182 note 42 TC. 2. 64–66.
page 182 note 43 As in this gloss preserved in a commentary to the Metamorphoses in MS. Mon. Lat. 7205 (c.13), fol. 45c: “adem pta nomen capillos. nam cirrus est capillus ue l capillorum/globus et a cirro dicta est cirris. que est alauda cri stata.”
page 182 note 44 “Vota Iovi Minos taurorum corpora centum
Solvit, ut egressus ratibus Curetida terram
Contigit, et spoliis decorata est regia fixis“ (Met. 8, 152–154).
page 182 note 45 Creverat obprobrium generis, feodumque patebat
Matris adulterium monstri novitate biformis“ (Met. 8, 115–156).
page 182 note 46 Met. 8, 157–168.
page 182 note 47 Met. 8, 169–173.
page 182 note 48 Met. 8. 174–182.
page 182 note 49 Oxf. Chaucer, iii, 334.
page 182 note 50 MS. Bibl. Nat. fr. 373, fols. 168c–169d.
page 182 note 51 Fols. 169d–171b.
page 182 note 52 Fols. 171b–c.
page 182 note 53 Met. 8. 171.
page 182 note 54 Fol. 171c.
page 182 note 55 Fols. 171c–172a.
page 182 note 56 Fol. 172b.
page 182 note 57 Shannon (op. cit., p. 232) remarks: “The winning of Athens by Minos (line 1922) is indicated definitely by Boccaccio: ‘In cujus ultionem (Androgeus) pater insurgens occiso Niso Megarensium rege Athenienses acri bello superavit sibique vectigales facti.’ (De Gen., xi, 27).” It is obvious, however, that Chaucer is following the Ovide Moralisé here and not the De Genealogia Deorum.
page 182 note 58 See Lowes, op. cit., pp. 322 and 323. Shannon (op. cit., p. 236) takes “Fro yere to yere” to mean “once a year” and considers the De Genealogia Deorum (10, Ch. 48) to have informed Chaucer that the tribute was annual. Yet there is stronger evidence for Chaucer's acquaintanceship with the Jugement (see above and G. L. Kittredge, Mod. Phil., vii, pp. 471–474; PMLA., xxx, pp. 3–4, 14–15) than with the treatise of Boccaccio.
page 182 note 59 The phrase recurs later in the Legend:
“And this hath Minos don, right in despyt;
To wreke his sone was set al his delyt,
And maken hem of Athenes his thral
Fro yere to yere, whyl that he liven shal.“ LGW., 1938–1941.
It seems better to translate it here by a less definite locution or word such as “always” rather than by “once a year,” and so also in Fri. D 1432. In many instances (Kn. A. 1443, Sq. F. 44, PF. 23, 321, 411) however, the expression is to be taken literally as “once a year.”
page 182 note 60 Op. cit., p. 323.
page 182 note 61 Op. cit., pp. 234–235.
page 182 note 62 Such as this one to Met. 8.170 in the commentary in MS. Mon. Lat. 7205, fol, 45°: “Athen ienses enim soluer e habeban t in tri bus annis/tri butum iuuenes. vii. minithauro qui sorte ess ent elec/ti.….”
Shannon (op. cit., 232 ff.) considers Boccaccio (De Genealogia Deorum, 10, Ch. 48), who defines the exaction as seven children annually, to have been Chaucer's informant: this source appears a less probable one than an annotation in Chaucer's own manuscript of Ovid.
page 182 note 63 ML. B 77 ff.
page 182 note 64 See above, note 62. A gloss in the oldest extant commentary to the Metamorphoses (MS. Mon. Lat. 4610, fol. 70d) reads: “Tertia sors aenni/us hic est intelligendum quod minos / iam uenisset athenas et eas deuicis-/set et illis legem inposuisset. ut sem per/ in ter cio anno per soluerent sibi ad opus minotauri nescio quod corpora.”
A note in a later English commentary (MS. Canon. Lat. 72, fol. 42b) is more circumstantial: “ter cia sors repetita an nis nouenis / hoc potest legi duplicite r secundum illos qui dicu nt quod singu lis nouem an nis mitebantur tres / hom in es ad esuriendum minotauri erun t tra nsacti ter uouem an ni hoc est xxti et / vii a pri ncipio sortis usque ad tem pus illud quo theseus missus fuit per sortem./ secundum illos qui diceban t quod singu lis tr ien niis miteban tu r nouem hom in es erunt / tra nsacti solum nouem an ni.”
A gloss in Ms. Mon. Lat. 14482, fol. 6b, makes the tribute annual and the victims fourteen: “Cuncti s atheniensibus / minos hoc iniunxit ut sem per post. iii. annos bis septem corpor a hominum mitterentur / minotauro in pastum. ”
Her. 10. 99–100 was sometimes annotated à propos of the tribute as in the text of MS. Balliol 143, fol. 28b: “Postea uer o rex minos pater androgei iuit / athenas et cepit ciuitatem atheniensem / et ea capta ordinauit quod singu la die unus / ex popularibus athenarum iret in laberin/tum ad bellandum cum minotauro eius/filio qui omn es ad eum euntes deuorabat / Sed cum con questio ess et eo quod ta men popu lares enim / ibant ordinauit quod nobiles irent simi lis / et fecit fieri apodixas que leuabantur / pro illis qui ire debant ad minotaurum / et sic leuando uen it apodixa pro theseo filio / regis athenarum. qui promisit adriane / filie regis minois acciper e eam in uxorem / si eius auxilio inter ficeret minotaurum.….”
Or the tenth epistle might be prefixed with an accessus which defined the nature of this tribute, as in MS. Trin. Coll. R. 3. 18, fol. 28b: “Post ea / minos tale tributum petiit / ab atheniensibus ut in/fine trium an norum nouem / corpor a mit ter entur que a min o-/tauro deuorarentur. athe-/nienses uero sortem miserun t ter na au tem sors cecidit supe r/theseum qui auxilio adri agne / minotaurum inter fecit. ”
The accessus to the fourth epistle in Ceffi's translation (ed. Bernardoni 30–31) makes the tribute annual: “.… lo Re Minos.… fece patto con Egeo, Duca d'Atene, che ogni anno gli dovesse mandare certo numero d'uomini.” The accessus to the tenth epistle anonymously translated in MS. Riccard. 1580 makes the interval one year also and specifies the number of men to be seven (fol. 38a). In Bonsignori's translation of the Metamorphoses the tribute is triennial and consists of seven men chosen by lot. “A tuti puose [Minos] per lege / che ogni capo de. iii. anni elli [the Athenians] douesse-/ro dare. vii. corpi d'homini (Bk. 8, Ch. 5, fol. 64a [ed. Venice, 1497]). …. liquali se man -/dauano per sorte” (Bk. 8, Ch. 8, fol. 64d). There is no internal evidence that Chaucer knew this translation, and its late date (1370) makes his acquaintance with it unlikely. For further light on the misinterpretation of “novenis” see Shannon (op. cit., p. 240ff.).
page 182 note 65 Lowes' surmise (op. cit., p. 323) that the OM. suggested it happens to be incorrect.
page 182 note 66 Fol. 172b. So too, Filippo, the translator of the Heroides (ed. cit., p. 31. See n. 16) and Boccaccio (De Genealogia Deorum 10, Ch. 48) record that the lot fell upon Theseus—see Shannon (op. cit., p. 245).
page 182 note 67 LGW. 1943–1949.
page 182 note 68 See Harper's Dict. of Classical Lit. and Antiq., 1897, p. 1570.
page 182 note 69 Met. 8, 174; Her. 10, 131.
page 182 note 70 LGW. 1952–1959.
page 182 note 71 LGW. 1960–1966.
page 182 note 72 Fol. 172b–c.
page 182 note 73 See above, note 16.
page 182 note 74 HF. 405–426.
page 182 note 75 As a gloss to Met. 8. 174 in the commentary to the Metamorphoses in MS. Canon. Lat. Class. 72, fol. 42b: “Rapta minoide id est adri agna filia / minois. duas adduxit secum adri agnam et phedram de phedra non facit men cionem quia non fuit stellificata sed de adriagna quam dimisit.” To learn of Phaedra Chaucer surely did not have to consult either Boccaccio's De Genealogia Deorum (10, Ch. 22) or his Amorosa Visione (Ch. 22) as Child (op cit., col. 487) supposed he did.
page 182 note 76 Similar metathetic forms are to be found in mediaeval texts of the Heroides and the Metamorphoses; in Machaut's Jugement dou Roi de Navarre, 2707–2769; in Filippo's translation of Her. 10; and in Italian translations of the Metamorphoses by Ser Arrigo Simintendi da Prato (c. 1320–1330) and by Giovanni dei Bonsignori (c. 1370).
page 182 note 77 LGW. 1985–2024.
page 182 note 78 Fol. 172c.
page 182 note 79 Fols. 172c–173a.
page 182 note 80 Fol. 173a–73b.
page 182 note 81 Fol. 173b.
page 182 note 82 One like this gloss to Met. 8. 183 in a commentary to the Metamorphoses in Ms. Mon, Lat. 4610 (c. 11), fols. 70d–71a: “Dedalus interea. Secundum / manogal dum quia dedalus theseo en / sem et globos piceos con silio adri/agnes dederat. per quos globos / ille minotaurus inmoriturus / a theseo inter fectus est ide o minos / dedalum in eandem domum consi-/lio eius adriagnes conclusit,” and this to Met. 8.171 in a commentary in MS. Mon. Lat. 7205 (c. 14) fol. 45c: “Novenis cecidit sors super theseum. cui / filum et picem tra didit. adriagne filia minois. aman s illum. / quo filo de poste ligato uenien s ad minithaurum cum aperiret / os suum ad deuorandum misit globum piceum in os eius quem dum / man ducaret euaginato gladio caput eius am putauit. deinde / sequ ens filum et ad portam redien s exiuit.”
Bonsignori in his translation of the Metamorphoses (Bk. 8, Ch. 12) speaks of a club, strangling pellets and the thread as given to Theseus by Daedalus who intercedes at the request of Ariadne and Phaedra. The globe of pitch, a sword, and the thread are mentioned in an introduction to Her. 10 in an anonymous Italian translation in MS. Riccard 1580, fol. 38b. These sundry weapons were probably all standard features of Ovidian exegesis.
page 182 note 83 “Taxu” is a variant form of “tac.”
page 182 note 84 LGW. 2010–2011.
page 182 note 85 LGW. 2026.
page 182 note 86 LGW. 2150–2154.
page 182 note 87 PMLA. xlv (1930), 117, 118.
page 182 note 88 Met. 8, 159–168.
page 182 note 89 See Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, N.Y., 1897, p. 464.
page 182 note 90 “Ella [Adriana] gl' [Teseo] insegnoe uccidere il Minotauro per l'ajuto del maestro Dedalo,” ed. Bernardoni, p. 31. See n. 16.
page 182 note 91 One such as that quoted from MS. Mon. Lat.4610 in n. 84. The allusion to Daedalus' assistance in Aen. 6. 29–30 would have been unintelligible to Chaucer unless glossed.
page 182 note 92 Met. 8. 183–235.
page 182 note 93 LGW. 2080–2101.
page 182 note 94 Op cit., PMLA xlv, 116. Boccaccio (De Gen. Deor. 11, Ch. 29) records it, and may, of course, have been Chaucer's source.
page 182 note 95 See above, note 16. The engagement is also mentioned in the Italian adaptation of the Metamorphoses of Giovanni dei Bonsignori (Bk. 8, Ch. 10). The reference of Bonsignori may have been suggested by the earlier work of Filippo. It may be, again, that the betrothal was a commonplace of mediaeval exegesis of Ovid, although I have found no glosses on the circumstance to suggest its wide acceptance.
page 182 note 96 JDRN. 2755–2758—quoted above.
page 182 note 97 HF. 421–424—quoted above.
page 182 note 98 Fol. 173b; LGW. 2136–2149.
page 182 note 99 LGW. 2155. The suggestion for this seems to have been Ovid's reference (Met. 7. 471ff.) to that land as the home of Aeacus, an Athenian ally—see Skeat, Oxf. Chaucer, iii, 338. n. LGW. 2155.
page 182 note 100 Fol. 173c. See above, note 14.
page 182 note 101 See Chaucer and an Italian Translation of the Heroides, PMLA 45 (1930), p. 116 ff. The De Genealogia Deorum (10, Ch. 48) is an improbable source for Chaucer's notice of the drowning.
page 182 note 102 Her. 10; LGW. 2185–2217.
page 182 note 103 Her. 10, 59–60; LGW. 2163–2165.
page 182 note 104 Met. 8. 178–180. Fas. 3. 513–516 is an equally good source intrinsically, but Chaucer shows slight knowledge of Bk. III of the Festivals.
page 182 note 105 For the sake of completeness, a triangular resemblance between the versions of the Story of Pyramus and Thisbe in the Ovide Moralisé (4.229–1169), the Legend of Good Women, and Gower's Confessio Amantis (3.1331–1494) may be noted here. In the Metamorphoses and these three later poems, the story beings:
Pryamus et Thisbe, iuvenum pulcherrimus alter,
Altera, quas Oriens habuit, praelata puellis,
Contiguas tenuere domos, ubi dicitur altam
Coctilibus muris cinxisse Semiramis urbem. (Met. 4.55–8)
En Babiloine la cité
Furent dui home renomé,
Dui citeain de grant hautece,
De parenté et de richece
Li riche home orent deus enfans
C'Ovides en son livre nome
Et dist qu'il furent apelé
L'uns Piramus, l'autre Tisbé. (OM. 4. 229–33, 38–40)
At Babiloine whylom fil it thus,
The whiche toun the queen Semiramus
Leet dichen al about, and walles make
Ful hye, of harde tyles wel y-bake.
Ther weren dwellinge in this noble toun
Two lordes, which that were of greet renoun, And woneden so nigh, upon a grene,
That ther nas but a stoon-wal hem bitwene,
As of te in grete tounes is the wone.
And sooth to seyn, that o man hadde a sone,
Of al that londe oon of the lustieste.
That other hadde a doghter, the faireste,
That estward in the world was tho dwellinge.
This yonge man was cleped Piramus,
And Tisbe hight the maid Naso seith thus. (LGW. 706–18, 24–5).
The Cite which Semiramis
Enclosed hath with wall aboute,
Of worthi folk with many a route
Was enhabited here and there;
Among the whiche tuo ther were
Above alle othre noble and grete,
Dwellende tho withinne a Strete
So nyh togedre, as it was sene,
That ther was nothing hem betwene,
Bot wow to wow and wall to wall.
This o lord hadde in special
A Sone, a lusti Bacheler,
In al the toun was non his pier:
That other hadde a dowhter eke,
In al the lond that forto seke
Men wisten non so faire as sche.
… … … …
And Tisbe hight the maid. (CA. 3, 1333–47, 74)
Ovid speaks of the paternal veto of the marriage of the lovers—“Sed vetuere patres” (Met. 4, 61)—, but he says nothing more of the fathers. They receive mention before the titular hero and heroine in all three mediaeval versions and their high estate is emphasized.
The resemblance in phraseology between the two English stories seems too close to be accidental. One—we cannot tell which—of the English poets probably influenced the other.
In the passages of the Ovide Moralisé and the Legend there are three minutiae not in Gower: the identification of the city of Semiramis as Babylon, the similar—and very common-place words—renomé and renoun, and the citation of Ovid as authority for the names of the lovers. The name of the city, it is true, Chaucer might have learned quite as well from Lactantius' famous short commentary to the Metamorphoses or a mediaeval gloss. (e.g. MSS Mon. Lat. 7205, fol. 30b; 14482, fol. 15b; 14809, fol. 71a) as from the French lines.
The quoted passages of the Ovide Moralisé and the Confessio are without special likenesses. These poems, however, have three peculiarities in common outside these passages: both personify the lover's passion—the one as Amours (OM. 4.241ff.); the other as Cupid (CA. 3. 1366ff.); both call the beast which tears Thisbe's wimple a lion (OM 4.888, 904, 919; CA. 3.1392, 98), and in both her refuge from the monster is arboreal:
Vait s'en isnelement mucier
Sous l'ombre d'un alemendier. (OM 4.902–3)
And Tisbee dorste noght remue,
Bot as a bridd which were in Mue
Withinne a buissh sche kepte hire clos
So stille that sche noght aros. (CA. 3, 1411–4).
Chaucer follows Ovid in specifying the beast to be a lioness (Met. 4.97, 102; LGW. 805, 817), and the refuge a cave (Met. 4. 100; LGW. 811).
Of the three common peculiarities just cited, none is striking. Thus, the personification of love is an ubiquitous convention, and the change of Thisbe's refuge is not confined to Gower and the French poet (Lanctantius Placidus: “Thisbe.… in sylvan refugit”; Giovanni dei Bonsignori's Ital. transi, of the Metamorphoses, Bk. IV, Ch. V.: “[Tisbe] ascose in uno luoco fra sassi e arbori. ”) As a summer's work has failed to disclose any other parallels between the Confessio and the Ovide Moralisé, I cannot but assume these to be accidental. We have then: striking parallels between Chaucer's and Gower's versions of the Thisbe story; interesting, but inconclusive, ones between Chaucer's and that of the Chide Moralisé.
page 182 note 106 As remarked above, EF. 405–426 seems rather to be indebted to the Jugement dou Roy de Navarre for certain details not in Ovid, than to the OM. The apparent allusion to the metamorphosis of Scylla in TC. V. 1110 may be owing to a gloss quite as possibly as to the French production.
